


Far Less Alone

by theoreticalpixy



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Comfort fic, Cuddling, Episode 42, F/M, Feels, Making Out, beginning of relationship, fill in fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 04:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19783459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoreticalpixy/pseuds/theoreticalpixy
Summary: "I don't want to be alone tonight, do you?""I haven’t been wanting to be alone most nights.”After the door closes fic.





	Far Less Alone

**Author's Note:**

> I will go down with this shiiiiiip

She opens the door without entirely knowing what she’s doing besides something kind to them both. The tired desperation in his face matches the ache in her heart, the fear that surrounds their lives now and all the dangers that make her want to reach for him. For a moment she’s sure he feels it. Sure in a way she hasn’t been even after his initial woozy confession.

He steps into her room. She closes the door. She sways. Just slightly, lips parted and staring at him silently, the fear that takes her sometimes is of an entirely different kind for a moment before they’re kissing. Both of them, leaning in together, and it’s real kissing, the kind she thinks of sometimes despite knowing she shouldn’t let herself imagine things like that. This isn’t someone stealing a kiss from her, heady as even that has been, but something she’s truly part of and it’s Vax. She can’t call him hers, Keyleth doesn’t know what to call him, but she reaches gently, tentatively, for his waist and he wraps his arms around her immediately at the sign of acceptance.

They kiss and it’s soft at first, then something growing desperate, the warmth of him against her is good in a way she’s denied herself from thinking about. His hands stroke her waist. Her back. Tangle up into her long hair. He kisses her like drowning, their breaths soon become short and gasping between kisses that get deeper as she learns this. There’s an aching never to stop, it’s driven by fear and overwhelming just as much as love, but - _love_. She doesn’t want to think that word. Not yet. She can’t. Part of her knows it’s true, and yet...

Keyleth sinks into the feeling of his touch, into the taste of his lips, but pushes the fight of that word away for now. He’s here and now kissing her, holding her. Saving her, maybe, in the dark of night from days that are too hard to bear alone. 

She realizes they’re stumbling backward, something she’d allowed at first, tugged at him herself, and gently prodded for. Her bed is barely made, only recently returned from helping the refugees downstairs, and she wakes up from their endless kissing to breathe terrified for a moment. She stops. There’s a quake in her chest and Vax, perceptive Vax, stops half a second later, a hand holding the fabric of her robe and nightdress, not moving it, just hanging there, himself scared for a moment that he’s done something horribly wrong. 

“I don’t…uh, I haven’t…I mean…” she stammered and Keyleth could feel her cheeks flushing. Something easy to accomplish when she was already warm with his presence. 

His eyes search her face, and in an instant he releases her as he realizes it. Steps back. “I don’t mean to… We don’t have to do anything you don’t want, Kiki,” he assured, “I’ll go,” he offered, his eyes clear and for a moment bright with regret, “I’m sorry if I overstepped.” 

“No.” Her voice sounds breathless, and sad, and she reaches for his arm. “No, I don’t want you to go, Vax,” she insists with the best clarity she can manage. “I meant what I said. But can we….can we just…sleep?” Her voice is high and apologetic with nerves. She doesn’t want to disappoint him, but she’s not quite ready for sex, even with him. Not like this, not out of fear and loneliness and desperate times. She’s not ready for that, but she’s also nowhere near ready for him to leave. 

His smile is soft and kind and real and it calms a little of her fears. 

“Whatever you want, Keyleth,” he promises. 

She’s slow to reach for him again, arms going to wrap around his shoulders, and she holds his gaze until she’s so close that the air is humming between them. She kisses him softly, and he lets her dictate the terms this time. He doesn’t push or pull at her, only respond to what she gives him. _Whatever you want._

She lets their kissing turn soft. It feels like something divine in the way sunrises are, beautiful and natural. 

He cradles her face, and she traces his arm over cloth until finding skin. She takes his hand even as she opens her mouth to him, and sways a little on her feet. She leads and he follows. Both knowing the lines now and Keyleth finding some measure of ease. 

They’re silent as they break apart, as apart as they’ll let themselves, hands still held as long as they might manage while getting into her bed. He's already out of armor, thankfully, but Vax still has to pause to get out of his boots and with the slightest tremble in her hands Keyleth reaches out to push off his overshirt once he straightens up. Her fingers are gentle as she takes it off him and he's motionless underneath her touch. They both let it fall to the floor. She looks to his face and her breath quickens with want as their eyes meet. There's a moment where she second guesses herself. Maybe she _could_ be ready... 

Vax reaches for her robe in turn, slips it off her shoulders and it puddles on the floor next to his shirt. Standing in a nightdress she has never felt more bare. Safe. But bare. This is such new territory for her and every part of it feels good. 

He has almost a shaking desperation in wanting this, whatever this is, but also a fight not to do anything wrong. Keyleth meets his gaze again, and after a long moment the pause in him shifts. His eyes are still troubled and dark, but his brow rests easier. They continue laying down together. 

It’s all like a trance, softly coming to rest underneath covers, and the discomfort that she might have noticed sleeping on her own doesn’t exist as she looks at Vax lying across from her, staring back at her as they face each other. He wraps an arm around her, and with some hesitation, some reverence, she reaches out to touch his face. 

“Kiki…” he breathes. 

“Vax.” She doesn’t have any other answer. Isn’t completely sure of the question, but glad to give whatever she can. 

He smiles, just a little, something serene and too lately foreign to the rogue’s face. It’s beautiful. He pulls her a little closer, then closer again. She settles against him and the tension seeps out of her shoulders. The warmth of him is soothing, and with each breath the scent of him helps replace fear with ease. It happens faster than she might have thought, faster than she might have even wanted, the sensation of laying with him too good to miss. 

For awhile she lays there, content with him against her and melting into this feeling. Sleep tries to lull her away, but she pushes it off at first. She thinks of Vax instead, not quite in specifics, but in moments and pieces and the way he looks at her. She can add the way he touches her now. What used to be small moments of casual touch is now his arms around her, his kiss, the rise and fall of his chest underneath her palm, and the way she tucks in perfectly against his neck. 

When she can’t fight it anymore, when his presence lulls her to point of rest, it’s like slipping blissfully away instead of into unease. Too often lately her nights have been uneasy and fearful and lonely. She’s sat up scared. She’s slept in fits. She’s tossed and turned. 

Tonight she’s safe with Vax, and she can only hope he feels the same. 


End file.
